The 20 Best New TV Shows of 2020

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – December 30, 2020

Above are the highest-scoring first-year TV series (including limited series) debuting in the United States between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Shows are ranked by Metascore (an average of grades from top professional critics on a 0-100 scale) prior to rounding based on scores as of December 29, 2020, and any programs with fewer than 7 reviews are excluded.

8 of 21 photo by William Gray/SHOWTIME

84 The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

(#13) When the covid-delayed Showtime miniseries finally arrived in October, it proved to be worth the wait. The Albert Hughes-directed adaptation of the award-winning novel by James McBride stars Ethan Hawke as 19th century abolitionist John Brown and Daveed Diggs as Frederick Douglass, alongside Lodge 49's Wyatt Russell, David Morse, Steve Zahn, Joshua Caleb Johnson, Orlando Jones, and Ellar Coltrane. It's no dry history lesson, though; instead, Bird offers a surprisingly fun and funny take on true events.

“The Good Lord Bird speaks to the present as well as the past. This is one of the most thoughtful and surprising series of an already impressive year: a historical epic of real vision.” —Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture

Watch it on Showtime (7 episodes)

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